For all of their talk of the Post-PC Era, Apple sure did wow a lot of people today with the unveiling of their new laptops. The Macbook Air refresh and the Macbook Pro refresh may have paled in comparison to the impressive new Retina Macbook Pro, but there was still plenty going on there to keep those laptops relevant. In many ways, Apple’s $2100+ MacBook Pro has created a new class of device, since there aren’t any other laptops right now that can go feature-for-feature with it.

The Macbook Air line will be plenty busy competing with the coming wave of Ultrabooks, many of which are shaping up to offer very similar hardware in very similar form factors. Even still, there are a few critical areas in which the Macbook Air line will stand out among the competition.

USB 3.0 ports

Apple’s move to Thunderbolt last year left many wondering how long it would be until the company decided to support USB 3.0. As it stands right now, we’ve still yet to see any huge adoption of Thunderbolt, but more devices every day are being announced and released with USB 3.0 support. Now as opposed to relying solely on Thunderbolt — which is expensive and still rare — for high speed external connections, Apple has added USB 3.0 to its products. It may be a relaxation of their standards (see: FireWire) but it will be much more usable than Thunderbolt for the foreseeable future.

So, yes, many Ulrabooks do have USB 3.0, but it’s no long an advantage they have over the MacBooks.

Up to 768GB SSD storage

The key thing to remember about Ultrabooks is that are all competing to get the lowest price without losing key points in processor speed, design, and battery life (as determined by Intel). To do so, one area that most of these devices tend to fall ever so short on is storage space. The 128GB SSD is pretty much where it’s at for most of these devices, and unfortunately that’s really just not enough for many users. While, yes, you can purchase and install a larger drive, or just buy and external one, being able to offer multiple drive sizes in different price points is a powerful thing.

The refreshed MacBook Air lineup offers a maximum of 512GB of storage, but the next generation Mac Book Pro goes up as high as 768GB. You pay a premium for the extra storage space, and if iPad sales have taught us anything it’s that most people will go for the cheapest possible option, but that does not account for everyone.

Apple is banking on there being plenty of users out there who need plenty more than 128GB of storage, and I think it’s a great bet to make.

Next generation Macbook Pro Retina Display

This pretty much goes without saying, but the idea of a Retina quality display on a laptop is pretty insane. While many laptops out there, including all of the other Apple Macbooks out there are shooting for around 1440×900, Apple has absolutely blown past that. It’s not a surprise, and it will probably be a year at least before Apple is able to offer that screen quality on their other laptops without affecting the base price model, but it sends a clear shot across the bow of every Ultrabook, laptop, tablet, and hybrid notebook out there. The next year will certainly be a mad dash in display technologies as the likes of Samsung, HP, Toshiba, Asus, and plenty others try to have competing devices out before the Macbook refresh next year.

Standard Macbook included features

It’s easy to sit here and talk about all of the new things that Apple has strapped into the new Macbooks, but it is also important to keep in mind that many laptop and Ultrabook manufacturers have yet to compete with existing features that Apple has had in their laptops for ages. The two biggest that stick out in my mind are the MagSafe (and now MagSafe 2) power adapter, and the backlit keyboard. There have been some laptops in recent memory that have offered up a backlit keyboard, but usually these either only burn at one brightness, or the keyboard brightness has to be adjusted manually. They are often an optional feature, as well.

As for the magnetic power adapter, which is in my opinion Apple’s greatest feature, has yet to be put in any major laptop or Ultrabook. The most common point of failure in any of my laptops in the past has been the power cord. Some tragedy struck that ripped the power cord out of the socket, permanently damaging the device. These features offer a clear dividing line between Macbooks and “everyone else”.

Available today

I was really impressed by many of the devices that were announced at Computex last week. There were a few Ultrabooks with touch screens and Windows 8 that really impressed me, and were added to my list of devices to consider purchasing. Over the next few months before those devices are brought to the states, I’ll be given at least a dozen other opportunities to consider other devices that will be announced. If you pay attention to device releases, you’ll end up playing a constant waiting game because the next greatest machine will be announced tomorrow. Apple removed the wait and removed the decision making time, by making the new line of machine available to ship today. You can walk in to any Apple Store, or head right to their website, and order one of these machines and probably have it delivered by the end of the week. Engaging the impulse buyer is a truly powerful tool to wield, and Apple did so very gracefully.

Final thoughts

In the end, Apple has accomplished something great today, and the Ultrabook manufacturers will need to step up their game if they expect to compete. In a world where many consumers are driven purely by price, the Ultrabook manufacturer will be able to scrape the bottom line and beat out Apple. In a world where the consumer is educated, and interested in a quality product, the refreshed Macbook line is compelling. Additionally, Apple has brought attention back to the high-end laptop, which once sat gargantuan machines like the HP Dragon or the Alienware line of machines. Apple’s competition now has to choose between focusing on the price obsessed consumer, or focusing on the quality focused consumer.